Small Space Saturday: Folding Laundry Cart

On Saturdays I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet

I think we are among the minority of full-timers because we do not have our own washer and dryer. Those who have them, love them. They do a load every couple of days, and ideally the dirty clothes never pile up.

Me? I prefer to do laundry at a laundromat. I only have to think about washing our clothes every two weeks or so, we don't need to be hooked up to water or sewer, and we save the space the machines would use in the bus. On my semi-monthly treks to the laundromat, I usually choose the really BIG machines so I can do just two loads: light and dark.

That means I need two things: large hampers/laundry baskets and a way to get them from Odyssey to the coin-op washateria. (That's what they're called in Texas.)

Our two large hampers live side-by-side in a closet. "Lights on the right, darks on the left":



The closet was deliberately sized to accommodate a washer and dryer, if we decide to add them later. For now, though, it holds hampers, bulky motorcycle jackets, winter coats and extra blankets.

Peeking out on the far right hand side is this little gem, the handy-dandy folding laundry cart:



Actually, I think it was billed as a luggage cart. When collapsed, it is only 25" x 15" x 2.25". Pretty skinny.

Here it is opened up to it's full glory. The handle height is now 39", no stooping to pull it along behind me. The stringy looking stuff is a bungee cord.



The bungee wraps around the laundry basket and holds it all together for schlepping to the Sudsy Clean Laund-Ro-Mat. I usually stack the second basket right on top of the first, unless I've waited an extra week to wash and both baskets are overflowing.



The bonus feature on this model is the beefiness of the wheels. Look at those off-road ready tires:



This is no Granny cart, let me tell you. I've hauled 50 pounds of grubby clothes across gravel parking lots in the rain, uphill both ways, with this set up. And if I need to carry something other than laundry? I just dump the clothes on the bed, hope the cat doesn't pee on them, and take an empty hamper on the cart. I'm not too proud to grocery shop with a faint odor of old socks about me.

I wish I could remember where we bought this cart and how much we paid for it, but since we didn't blog about it at the time, that information is now gone forever. (As Sean said to me the other day, "I blog to remember, and I drink to forget.") I do remember that it was more money than those folding wire carts with plastic wheels that are very common. Having tried to cram my hampers into one of those @*$&% wire carts before, I believe this hardier cart is a much better deal. After three years, it hasn't bent, whimpered or seized up, which is more than I can say for my own body. And it is only two and a quarter inches wide.